Come on, you can sing along, “Look to the future now, it’s only just begun.....”

nd if you don’t know the words to Slade’s festive anthem, where have you been for the past 45 years? In 1973 this song came into our lives, and it has been part of the soundtrack to Christmas ever since. It’s classified under the genre “glam rock”, although archive footage of Noddy Holder doing his thing certainly begs the question: “Define glam?”

“So here it is Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun..” except perhaps shop workers, bar tenders, and anyone else who for weeks now has been forced to listen to the likes of Merry Xmas Everybody (which, Pop Pickers, beat Wizzard’s I wish it Could be Christmas Everyday to the top of the charts). You have my deepest sympathy. Although if it’s any consolation to you, after it hit number one the song remained in the charts for nine weeks. Seriously, that’s past St Valentine’s Day.

Chris Rea seems to set off around bonfire night to reach his “baby”. If only he got there quicker he could put us all out of our misery - maybe someone should get him Sat Nav.

Christmas songs are supposed to be bad, I get it. But some are just shocking. One Millennial explained it to me with wide eyes, excited hands and an upturn in tone at the end of every question-mark phrase: “It’s like you release a bad song (?) and it shoots the moon and comes right round(?) till it’s rad!.” Okaaaay.

For all its corniness Slade’s song makes me smile though. I sang my heart out to it, entwined with schoolfriends, at a rugby club Christmas do when I was 18. We were young, happy and free and it truly felt like the future had only just begun. I still get that feeling when I hear it, and think of someone in that group no longer here. So, cheers to all of you, and to absent friends.